


Someone has to leave first

by crookedspoon



Series: [1mw] Weekend Feeling [52]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Darkness, Grief/Mourning, Late at Night, M/M, No Dialogue, POV Ronan Lynch, Sleeping Together, The Raven King Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 07:23:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12648870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Ronan lives with the knowledge of Gansey's death lodged inside him, even when Gansey is right here, breathing and warm and alive against him.





	Someone has to leave first

**Author's Note:**

  * For [giuggiulu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/giuggiulu/gifts).



> Written for #462 "Mortality" at slashthedrabble and 20. "Can't See (Darkness/Blindfold/Blindness)" at 1mw's [Weekend Challenge](https://1-million-words.livejournal.com/2168610.html?thread=20589858#t20589858).
> 
> It's been exactly a year since I last read TRK, so I might be fuzzy on the details.

Loss lives like an incision inside of Ronan, stitched-up and broken open so often it's tatter-edged and reluctant to close. The next death might roll around, just to keep the habit of mourning alive.

The cut – more like a stab wound – had been festering since his father's death, prodded and picked at with every nightmare about losing Matthew. That had been his normal until last year introduced a new normal.

Kavinsky's death popped the stitches, Persephone's had lain a finger in the wound, his mother's had been another knife, ripping him right open. And into that gaping and bleeding hole Gansey's death had stuck its hand and crushed his heart.

Ronan lives with the knowledge of this death lodged inside him, even when Gansey is right here, breathing and warm and alive against him. His fingers trace Gansey's frame in the dark, memorizing the shape of him. Adam's appear to be doing the same, reaching over Ronan's chest and running over Gansey's wrist to the crook of his elbow to his shoulder. When they meet Ronan's during their exploration, they inspect them too, knuckle by knuckle, as if marveling at his continued existence.

His own near-death seemed inconsequential next to losing Gansey. Those minutes had been like hours that had squeezed the life out of him more effectively than the demon had tried to.

Yet Adam had witnessed it, had felt it, had been part of it with his hands and eyes possessed. He could have lost both of them that night, and through Gansey's sacrifice lost only one: Noah, who gave his ghost-life to give Gansey a third chance at his.

Gansey had been changed after that, just as his first death had changed him, but he was still _Gansey._ He provided Ronan with a reason to live. Ronan is willing to tape himself up and staple himself together for him, no matter how much he is still bleeding or how long it will take for his wounds to knit themselves together again.

Ronan presses the tip of Adam's middle finger between his thumb and index finger. Adam blows a silent breath against his chest, no doubt feeling the same complex bag of emotions about each of them.

The darkness around them is complete and, kissing Adam's knuckles for luck, Ronan sinks into it and sinks and sinks, until he reaches Cabeswater. It's still there in his dreams, though it's so much less than it used to be. A sapling compared to a tree. The corruption is gone, however. 

He asks for a dust of light to bring with him, a tiny swarm of fireflies, something to ease his mind from the terror of not seeing. 

He can sense Gansey's warmth, feel the solidity of his body, can practically taste the mint leaves on his breath, but his raw nerves prefer to have his sleep-soft features illumined, afraid that Gansey might slip away if they don't watch over him. So he dreams light, a soothing blue and revealing glow.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Worm King's Lullaby" by Richard Siken.
> 
> Tumblr post for reblogging convenience can be found [here](https://crookedspoonfic.tumblr.com/post/167242552960/someone-has-to-leave-first).


End file.
